'Go! Go! Oregon': Japanese magazine takes on Zoobombers, state

Coyote MagazineThe Japanese travel magazine Coyote dedicates several pages to Portland's ZooBombers in this month's issue.

How do you say "don't forget your helmet" in Japanese?

The ZooBombers, Portland's band of daredevil bicyclists, gets a big write-up this month in the high-concept Japanese travel magazine Coyote.

"They came to us and said, 'We want something indie,'" said Jeff Hammerly of Travel Portland.

So, they were pointed to the Zoobombers' Sunday night rides in Portland's West Hills.

Actually, Issue No. 28 of Coyote (apparently it's pronounced Kay-O-Tay) is the "Go! Go! Oregon" issue. It tackles the state with articles and what Hammerly calls "post-apocalyptic-type photos."

The ZooBomber article was written by Wieden+Kennedy executive John Jay, whose creative assistant Christina Okubo took the photos. The magazine "wanted to share a part of Portland that expresses the city's independent spirit," Okubo said.

Of course, we should mention that the write-up is in Japanese. And online translators like Yahoo! Babel Fish don't seem to help deciphering the web page beyond a collection of foreign symbols and a mish-mash of English.

Hammerly was willing to lend a hand with translation. The author of the introduction, wrote that he had visited San Francisco many times but was yearning for something more genuine, he said.

"He writes that San Francisco had become a parody of itself," he said, "so he headed north."